Laser Forum FAQ - Database of Information etc.

Hi All,

I've been thinking about this for a little while since I logged onto this forum a couple of years ago. It seems like a lot of sailors have the same questions or that topics have be discussed at length multiple times. On the other hand, a sailor may have a question where bits and pieces of each topic was covered in multiple posts etc. Sometimes searching the forum yields results but can be tedious and time consuming. Has anyone ever considered getting started on a FAQ type of project that would have answers to the most commonly asked questions here like;

- How can I go faster in heavy air upwind?
- How do I build my own dolly for cheap?
- How do I fix gelcoat cracks, spider cracks etc.?

I never saw the Dr. Laser site, but imagine it covered much of this material in an organized fashion. Maybe this is a project some of us would like to begin. I've seen it done on other forums with experts selecting the best answers from the past and crediting the author beside each answer... or even writing new ones. We could divide the topics into sections and compile information from various sources to provide a nice, free online reference.

Any thoughts?

Cheers
Colin
 
they do make Laser sailing books ya know....

I'm sure most people here know how to read
 
Colin,

I think that's an awesome idea... I'm not sure I'd be qualified to give any answers but I think it would be a great resource for people to get "real world" advice from people who can remember (or still experience) the type of issue the everyday laser sailor faces rather than the top flight who tend to be concerned about things I've no idea about...


they do make Laser sailing books ya know....

I'm sure most people here know how to read


Ross... not sure if you're trying to be funny but given that some of your posts are about making the laser a better, more accessible/cheaper class of sailboat, I would have thought you'd have something more positive to say about this? As my mother once said... if you've nothing constructive to say, don't say anything at all....
 
Maybe this is a project some of us would like to begin. I've seen it done on other forums with experts selecting the best answers from the past and crediting the author beside each answer... or even writing new ones. We could divide the topics into sections and compile information from various sources to provide a nice, free online reference.

Any thoughts?

Cheers
Colin

I think that is a great idea. I've been reading this forum for a couple of years, and a number of the same topics crop up continuously, such as various aspects of hull repair, buying a used boat, and sailing tips.

I'm certain that such a project would be welcomed by Bradley Green, the owner of the forum. He has set up the TLF Knowledge Center under the "Other" category. This is a wiki, which would be a perfect place for a collaborative effort. However, I just looked at it, and there's no visible index. The only way to find a topic is with the search feature. There's only a few articles on there, unless someone has been secretly working away at it. Perhaps after members have created the "perfect" article, Bradley would place fixed files in a FAQ area such as you suggest.
 
"Ross... not sure if you're trying to be funny but given that some of your posts are about making the laser a better, more accessible/cheaper class of sailboat, I would have thought you'd have something more positive to say about this? As my mother once said... if you've nothing constructive to say, don't say anything at all...."

I'll give you that much boyo, but alot of the Basic LAser answers can get answered from some of the book already aout there, no reason to reinvent the wheel

http://www.laserinternational.org/library.htm

such as:

The Complete Book of Laser Sailing 2nd Edition
The Laser Campaign Manual - Ben Ainslie
Championship Laser Racing - Glenn Bourke
The Complete Introduction to Laser Racing - Edited by Ben Tan
The Laser Book - Tim Davison, 4th Edition
Laser Racing - Ed Baird
Mental & Physical Fitness for Sailing - Alan Beggs, John Derbyshire & Sir John Whitmore
International Laser Class Association Handbook 2007

those will answer pretty much everything you will ever need to know, and more

I have all of them, and trust me, their good, the Ben Tan is my favorite one, a bit older, but its got everything

But I would be more than happy to answer questions, the Laser isent that hard of a boat to uderstand that, its not a 470
 
salsa 88082;31069 I'll give you that much boyo said:
The point is, these questions are asked on here constantly by newbies looking for quick answers to be able to get on the water. Why do you have such resistance to an easy to access Laser database?
 
because we're sitting on it lol!

just do a search, and you can easily enough find it, or scroll back at least 5 pages and youll find it

and the books have allready been written for the newbs!
 
I'll give you that much boyo, but alot of the Basic LAser answers can get answered from some of the book already aout there, no reason to reinvent the wheel


Ross... not sure if you've missed it - but we live in the information age? As a method to reduce the cost of entry to the sport, the online reference would be a huge cost saving for a new sailor. Just add the cost of all your books together and it will come to a fair amount of cash.... maybe enough to pay for your JC strap idea.....


To reiterate... Colin, great idea, I'm all for it and will read it with interest... If there's something I can contribute then I will although it will probably be limited to how best to pack up quickly or something equally useless!
 
because we're sitting on it lol!

just do a search, and you can easily enough find it, or scroll back at least 5 pages and youll find it

and the books have allready been written for the newbs!

Using the Search feature can be time consuming, time that can be spent sailing instead. I have all those books too and have read them, but not everyone can afford to buy them. Let's help the people out. Those who really get into Laser sailing will buy those books anyway, eventually-- it's human nature.

I think maybe this thread was started not to debate whether or not the idea should be done, but who is onboard to help. So who is in?
 
I understand, and I get it, but its been done allready, God help us if we have to pick up a book and read! I would think you would be open to having books Merrily, have written several yourself, but as people grow in things, they usually buy the books, and dont even get started that they are expensive, thats a load of crap

and I seriously doubt people would rather spend their saturday on the net using the search function, than sailing, so that argument doesent even come into play, most people are porbably on TLF at work, or at home after dinner or some such time

but yes it is a good idea, and I would be more than happy to help

( I just think its a bit much, then again, that could be said about all my ideas too, its a give and take world)
 
ok, I'll try and take it easy, but I will not apologize to the Rev Al Sharpton!
 
Maybe TLF Knowledge centre just needs a revamp of it's search keyword capabilities.

If we put all the amazingly accurate and learned advice people tell newbies on here in a database, what would we have to talk about? We'd only come here to abuse Ross instead.:cool:

Sounds tempting I know.
 
Maybe TLF Knowledge centre just needs a revamp of it's search keyword capabilities.

there you go!

there should just be sections for:

Repairs
Sails
Rigging
Develpoments(?)

stuff like that, give stuff its own forums
 
ok, I'll try and take it easy, but I will not apologize to the Rev Al Sharpton!

There's no need to apologize to the Rev. Al Sharpton, but now you owe me an apology for saying that (as the writer of a book about Africa), and let's go ahead and get an apology to the readers of TLF for the original language.
 
lets not get ridiculous here....

my Rev comment was in no way towards you, more a joke about mainstreem media today, how anyone that says something that someone doesent agree with, they always end up apologizing to the Rev, somehow
 
lets not get ridiculous here....

my Rev comment was in no way towards you, more a joke about mainstreem media today, how anyone that says something that someone doesent agree with, they always end up apologizing to the Rev, somehow


Got it. Do you have anything for insomnia?
 
This thread is a typical example of what I am talking about regarding the search function. In order to find what you are looking for, you generally will need to sort through one or more threads filled with complete BS. People bickering back and forth, jokes, maybe some unqualified replies from people who "think" they know etc. I think that kind of thing is great for the "fun of the forum" aspect but is just annoying when you are trying to find answers.

Laser books are good, it's true, but I think a project like this would be good for the sport, perhaps better than some of the books listed in some areas.

I think the Wiki in the knowledge center is the perfect way to go.

Merrily you are right, I'm more interested in the question of "Who is interested in helping?"

Cheers,
Colin
 
A wiki is a great place to store this type information. Probably the most important way to make it useful is to set up categories using either [[Category:Category name]] or {Category name}, so pages can be classified when they are created. This will automatically create category indexes.

Ideally your Main Page would then contain links to the major category indexes.

There can even be a section for Ross to post book reviews, so as to let us know which ones are worth spending money on. :)

Rob
 
Got it. Do you have anything for insomnia?

man, wish I knew the answer to that! I have such a hard time sleeping...

"There can even be a section for Ross to post book reviews, so as to let us know which ones are worth spending money on. "

seeeexy


still think it would be a good idea to just have different sections

one for hull repair, one for spars, rigging, upwind, downwind, etc, stuff like that
 
Actually the "All Pages" page is built in to mediawiki. There are a lot of cool things that can be done to make the wiki easier to navigate. Search is really not the way to go (especially since the built-in search for mediawiki is really quite weak).

If you want a common header on category pages you can setup a template for the category, which includes the category tag ([[Category:Category Name]]). You then include the template for the category by putting either {{template:Category Name}} or {{Category Name}} at the top of the page. Now you not only have a common header, but you have an automatically created index for the category.

If you really want to get fancy, you can create subcategories by putting the [[Category:Category Name]] tag for the parent category in a category description page.

I.e.: [[Category:Rigging]] tag on the Category:Boomvang page makes Boomvang a subcategory of rigging.

If people want to charge ahead with this we should probably create a Wiki editing page to set out categories and templates.

Rob
 
Actually the "All Pages" page is built in to mediawiki. There are a lot of cool things that can be done to make the wiki easier to navigate. Search is really not the way to go (especially since the built-in search for mediawiki is really quite weak).

If you want a common header on category pages you can setup a template for the category, which includes the category tag ([[Category:Category Name]]). You then include the template for the category by putting either {{template:Category Name}} or {{Category Name}} at the top of the page. Now you not only have a common header, but you have an automatically created index for the category.

If you really want to get fancy, you can create subcategories by putting the [[Category:Category Name]] tag for the parent category in a category description page.

I.e.: [[Category:Rigging]] tag on the Category:Boomvang page makes Boomvang a subcategory of rigging.

If people want to charge ahead with this we should probably create a Wiki editing page to set out categories and templates.

Rob

Most of what you said made my head spin. I did get the part about charging ahead with and editing page with categories and templates. Sounds very useful for getting started.
 
Well, the next step then would be to take the 27 existing pages and try to build categories around them.

For example the pages Bailer Install and Bailer Repair could be in the category Bailer, which could be a subcategory of the top level category Maintenance or Boat. You could also have it as a subcategory of both...
  1. Bailer install
  2. Bailer repair
 
I mean like have different forums for different things, like On Sailing Anarchy they have a dinghy forum, and a big boat forum, a general, AC cup, etc...
we should have one for Masts, one for sails, one for rigging, one for hull repair, one for new ideas, one for class rules, maybe one for Radial, one for Fulls, one for 4.7

give evrything its own place, all nice and sorted
 
I mean like have different forums for different things, like On Sailing Anarchy they have a dinghy forum, and a big boat forum, a general, AC cup, etc...
we should have one for Masts, one for sails, one for rigging, one for hull repair, one for new ideas, one for class rules, maybe one for Radial, one for Fulls, one for 4.7

give evrything its own place, all nice and sorted

That would be up to the owner of this forum. Let's create the thing and then see where it takes us. All in good time.
 
Why don't we try to re-create Shevy's drLaser site?

Searching wikis is fine, if you know what you are searching for. The great thing about drLaser was you could browse around and stumble onto info you didn't realize you needed!

I understand there are copyrite issues, and if we can't get in touch with Shevy, we would have to re-create from scratch. But we could follow the general idea/format.

I assume there is way to append this to LaserForum, right? Bradley?
 
Why don't we try to re-create Shevy's drLaser site?

Searching wikis is fine, if you know what you are searching for. The great thing about drLaser was you could browse around and stumble onto info you didn't realize you needed!

I understand there are copyrite issues, and if we can't get in touch with Shevy, we would have to re-create from scratch. But we could follow the general idea/format.

I assume there is way to append this to LaserForum, right? Bradley?


The wiki that Bradley already setup can provide all the browsability of a normal site. It's just a matter of categorizing articles and linking the top level categories from the main page. Cross linking articles and categories is also ridiculously easy. The other advantage of a wiki is that everyone can contribute.
 
I am excited we are finally going to get this resource going! I am working on the wiki right now: I am currently fixing the template and a few rough edges and then I am going to create some base pages and categories for you to come back and fill in. I will provide more updates shortly!
 
Ok, I have gone through and put everything inside a category! Now its time to start filling in more information.

Also, I have updated the Mediawiki installation and bought some software to better integrate the forum with the wiki --notice the style integration. Also, you must be a Registered User Promoted to edit pages on the wiki. To be a promoted user use must have made 5 or more posts that were not considered spam. This is all automatic and is a part of the spam fighting technology installed on TLF!

So what categories do we want to start with? I think we should have a core group of articles like Sail Number, Hull Number, Gel Coat Repair, etc. that are categorized appropriately but also as FAQ. I have implemented this on the Sail and Hull number articles.
 
Sweet. Thanks Bradley, this should be a great resource!

I went ahead and added text to the three category pages that were still showing up as edit instead of article.

One easy way to do your FAQ is to simply list all the questions with a link to the answer page immediately after it.

I.e. How do I sail fast? [[Sailing Fast]]

Later you can divide the FAQ into sections and use the # tag for auto-numbering.

Another great wiki trick is the use of sections on long articles. By using the section tag (=1st level Text=, ==2nd Level Text==, etc.) the wiki will autocreate table of contents for you. At some point you may want some standard top level sections (i.e. summary, links, citations).

As an example, I added sections to http://www.laserforum.org/know/index.php?title=Assessing_a_Laser%E2%80%99s_Condition--Buying_a_Used_Boat


Rob
 
SailNC,
Everything you have suggested is great, now we just need to work on getting more information in there.

@Everyone-- It's time to start writing! The software is ready now its your turn! ;)
 
thats not what I ment in any way!

everything can be filed under something, and pertains to something

it all has a place
 

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